On 18/11/2011, at 10:00 PM, Pontus Lurcock <pont@talvi.net> wrote:

On Fri 18 Nov 2011, Hans Hagen wrote:
so, best is that those asking for it come up with a list of issues:
which symbols need this option, is it language related or whatever,
so that i can do them all at once. We can already have different
mapping sets so spacing could be part of that.

I don't personally have a need for units in the foreseeable future (I
was just nitpicking with Robin about spacing) so feel free to ignore
any of my suggestions, but I think the summary so far would be:

1. Spacing for almost all SI units should be the same and doesn't
  need special cases.

2. Geographical degrees/minutes/seconds should have no spaces.

3. Spacing for degrees temperature varies according to different style 
  guides -- both before and after the ° -- so ideally it would be
  possible to set these independently of the rest of the units.

For my own part I would add:

4. SI unit abbreviations are mostly capital letters, and look (to me)
  strange with old-style figures. I have seen books which used 
  old-style figures for page numbers, years, etc. but switched to
  lining figures when a unit was involved; this is also what I did
  in my thesis. So I think it would be useful to allow an automatic
  switch to lining figures to be configured when typesetting a unit.

Pont

I agree on points 1 and 2 (although it seems arcminute and arcsecond are
not implemented anyway). Point 3, yes, but I'm dubious about space after °
for the temperature units °C or °F as it breaks the rule about unit
ambiguity ("° C" is a degree-Coulomb -- although I can't image a physical
situation that would need such a unit). Point 4 is a bit beyond the scope
of the SI units scheme but sounds like a potential need.

Over the weekend I've discovered a couple more problems with \unit so I'll
make up some test cases and desired output and post it in a few days.

Robin